School of Chemistry Colloquium: Professor Kenneth Harris (Cardiff University) New Experimental Techniques for Exploring Crystallization Pathways and Structural Properties of Solids

Our current research is focused on understanding fundamental aspects of the structural and dynamic properties of solids, and the development of experimental techniques for investigating these properties, with particular interest in: (i) the development and application of techniques for crystal structure determination of organic solids directly from powder X-ray diffraction data, (ii) advancing new in-situ solid-state NMR strategies for monitoring the time-evolution of crystallization processes, and (iii) investigating structural properties of anisotropic materials using polarized X-ray beam techniques, with particular current interest in the X-ray Birefringence Imaging technique. The lecture will focus primarily on recent developments within themes (ii) and (iii). Our in-situ solid-state NMR techniques for studying crystallization pathways exploit the ability of NMR to selectively detect the solid phase in heterogeneous solid/liquid systems of the type that exist during crystallization from solution. This strategy allows the sequence of solid phases formed during crystallization processes to be established, including the discovery of new transient polymorphs and intermediate amorphous phases that exist on crystallization pathways. In this research, we have also developed an in-situ NMR strategy (called “CLASSIC NMR”) that yields simultaneous information on the time-evolution of both the solid phase and the liquid phase during crystallization from solution. The lecture will discuss several applications that highlight the scope and capability of in-situ NMR strategies for gaining insights into the evolution of crystallization processes and other types of materials formation process.

This lecture is open to final year undergraduate students, MSc students, PhD students, PDRAs and academic staff.